There is an immense reservoir of good will for public libraries and yet public libraries are struggling to stay afloat. Why is this? It seems that in our marketing efforts, we are being incredibly obtuse. But in what ways? How do we tap into Ghawar Field of public love for libraries? How do we make libraries sticky? Let's discuss.

Monday, April 11, 2011

As much as I would like for the spreading of the library gospel to be just a simple one-shot deal, it just doesn't work that way.

Or at least it doesn't work that way for me.

I've been doing this outreach gig for coming up on five years now and in terms of reaching my entire community I'm really just at the starting line. My sense is that to get the public to fully appreciate the value that their public library holds we need to be consistently communicating like a child: unrelenting and occasionally with bits of brilliance.

Now, if I had a budget to work with or a staff to assign tasks to I might have a different take on this but I'm guessing I'd still be in roughly the same situation. It's a truism that there has never been a great organization that was built with all the resources it needed from the very beginning. That has to be earned.